Every time Bill Hartmann tells a suburbanite that he lives Downtown, he hears the Big Three Questions.

1. Where do you shop for groceries?

2. Is it safe?

3. What about parking?

He answers the questions quickly.

1. At a Kroger four times closer than the one he frequented when he lived on the West Side.

2. Yes.

3. Well, if you make plans, you avoid problems. Still, Downtown could use a few more places to park.

Since the city’s parking lease deal went into limbo, Hartmann, a third-generation baker at his family’s St. Lawrence Bakery in Price Hill, has seen the parking question shoot to No. 1 in the minds of non-Downtown residents. He’s not alone.

Downtown dwellers recently lit up the message board of a neighborhood website with their parking concerns. Attendees of January’s meeting of the Downtown Residents Council also had parking on their minds.

Added Dr. William T. Hoskins: “My patients, half of whom don’t live Downtown, go nuts trying to find a place to park when the Reds have a day game during the week or when there’s a 5K race on a Saturday that closes Downtown streets.

“There are plenty of places to park for everyone Downtown where there’s no event,” added the man who has practiced dentistry for 38 years near the Reds’ ballpark. “But when you add 5,000 to 50,000 more people, parking gets tight.”

It’s only going to get tighter, predicted Capt. Paul F. Broxterman Jr., the Cincinnati Police Department’s Central Business Section commander. “Parking is becoming more a of challenge,” he said, “with the new development and more people moving Downtown.”

He cited the demolition and construction work on Fourth Street involved in converting Tower Place Mall to a parking garage. “We must coordinate all of the needs of all of the players and still maintain sufficient traffic flow.”

According to Downtown Cincinnati Inc.’s latest calculations, 13,401 people live Downtown. That total includes 7,803 in the Central Business District and 5,598 in the adjoining neighborhoods of Over-the-Rhine and Pendleton. Those areas boast 72,796 parking spots.

That sounds like plenty parking places. But on any given day, they can be filled by Downtown workers, residents and visitors.

While Cincinnati affords Downtown residents a very walkable neighborhood, no one denies they need cars.

“The idea of the modern urban family living Downtown without a car is just not yet a reality in Cincinnati,” Hudson said. The reason for that boils down to: “No major-league grocery store.”

Downtown is slated to get a full grocer in 2016. Until then, the closest one rests in Newport and is not within easy walking distance, i.e. getting there requires a car.

“I drive to the Kroger Marketplace in Newport,” Hartmann noted. “That’s two miles from my home Downtown. When I lived in Western Hills, I had to drive eight miles to the nearest Kroger. The one in Newport is bigger and has more stuff.”

For the last four years, the baker has lived in the former McAlpin’s department store. When it comes to parking, he’s sitting pretty at the place he calls home. He has two spaces in the building’s in-house garage. Plus, he knows how to read the Reds’ and Bengals’ schedules as well as a calendar of Downtown events.

“You don’t have a get-together and invite people Downtown when there’s a big game or a big event,” he said. “There’s no place to park.

“You have them come Downtown two hours after the game – or after 6 p.m. when the meters are free. By then there’s nobody down here. The people who went to the Reds’ or Bengals’ game have hopped in their cars and driven back home to the suburbs.”

Hartmann, Hudson and Ally Senefeld-Naber, a Procter & Gamble engineer who moved to Over-the-Rhine in April, see a need for more parking spaces. They believe these spots are needed on the street and in the form of new garages for residents and visitors.

“Buying a condo in Over-the-Rhine was a no-go if I did not have a place to park,” Senefeld-Naber said.

“I’ve had roommates who have had to park on the streets,” she noted. They did not encounter problems with parking tickets or break-ins or countless trips circling the block in search of a place to park.

“But that’s because we’re on Fourteenth Street on the edge of development in Over-the-Rhine,” she added. “When they start developing around our building, those available spaces will disappear.”

As a solution, she proposed issuing resident parking permits for specially marked areas covering specific time periods. That plan is already in action in parts of Pendleton and Clifton.

“And it can be tailored to fit any community,” said Michael Moore, Cincinnati’s director of transportation and engineering. He welcomes requests and feedback from residents.

“Quite frankly,” he added, “this is a good problem to have,” he said. “It means more people are coming Downtown to visit and to live. That’s why we need to solve these problems so even more people can enjoy Cincinnati.”

Hartmann agrees. The baker with three generations of his family living Downtown continues to be amazed when he sees “people racing to their cars right after a game, leaving Downtown and going home. There are tons of new restaurants within walking distance of the stadiums. There are new shops to check out in Over-the-Rhine. Downtown’s safe. It’s real nice down here. And getting nicer every year. People should stick around and check it out.”⬛